Saving a giant corporation billions in potential damages, the Supreme Court ruled that a case in which 1.5 million women that claimed that they faced discrimination in pay and promotions at Walmart could not proceed under a class-action suit. Truthdig reported that the ruling:

“... means that the lawsuit cannot proceed under class-action status and that each of the women involved must pursue their own claims. In being unable to sue as a unified bloc, complainants are likely to have a much more difficult time making their cases.”

Rather than come to a conclusion on the question of sex discrimination, the court avoided the actual issue of the case and focused on the way the case was being presented. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that the plaintiffs couldn’t have “a common answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored” because each of the operating branches of Walmart are under different management. "On its face, of course, that is just the opposite of a uniform employment practice that would provide the commonality needed for a class action," Scalla wrote. "It is a policy against having uniform employment practices.”

This decision creates a precedent that will negatively affect other class-action suits. Four justices -- Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor -- partially dissented from the decision.

According to the New York Times, Ginsberg stated, “that both the statistics presented by the plaintiffs and their individual accounts were evidence that ‘gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s corporate culture.’ She said, for instance, that women filled 70 percent of the hourly jobs but only 33 percent of management positions…’” She disapproved of the total ban on class-action suit that constituted this decision, favoring instead a different method of class-action, as there is evidence that the discrimination is occurring.

Thinking of the effects of the decision, she wrote: 

“The practice of delegating to supervisors large discretion to make personnel decisions, uncontrolled by formal standards, has long been known to have the potential to produce disparate effects…Managers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that had “civil rights lawyers succeeded in the case, they had hoped to bring other suits against large employers who allegedly relegate women or minorities to lower-paying jobs.” Now, there seems to be little hope for that. The Supreme Court decision now allows any judge hearing one of these discrimination cases to cite the Walmart decision, and prevent justice from being brought to employers who discriminate unlawfully.

 

Reach Staff Columnist Cara Palmer here or follow her on Twitter.